Brittany Schwonke

One of the things that Baldwin Lee mentioned about Walker Evans was that he did not like to be called a documentary photographer. I found this bit of information interesting because he was in fact hired by the government to be just that, to take photos that would document the effects the great depression was having on the farmers of the south. Many people today would think of a documentary photographer as a person that takes pictures for a newspaper or a magazine, and they would not really consider them an artist. Looking at Walker Evans work you can tell why he did not want to be known as a documentary photographer. An article about showing Walker Evan’s work in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, states “Looking at Evans' work makes one think about documentary photography as an art form, a complex subject.” I liked this quote because Walker Evan’s photography definitely is an art form and goes against the norm of a documentary photographer. By looking at his work you can just tell that he really planned each and every photograph carefully, to try and convey a message. This was especially apparent in Baldwin Lee’s speech. He talked about the building with the great columns and how Evan’s had carefully positioned his camera to show a certain view of it so that you could see the letters that spelled out “signs”. I also liked when he talked about the picture with all of the boots and how he looked more into the picture than what was actually there, noticing that all the white boots were together while the black boots were set off to the side. Before Lee mentioned these things about looking deeper into the photograph I would have thought that Evan’s work was just like any other photographs showing the hardships of the Great Depression, but when he mentioned how he really wanted to show these photos as art I could really see that that is what they are and that documentary photography is a form of art.
Article: Walker Evans and Photography
Author: David Walsh
Date: March 3rd, 2000
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/evan-m03.shtml

While researching about Walker Evans I came across many interesting facts about the years he taught at Yale. In one article a former student mentioned “As a teacher he (Evans) was not distant but available, thought-provoking, and a catalyst for introspection. In addition, he had a wry sense of humor. As he was not one for spending time on technical aspects of photography, his teaching focused on content and form as well as composition and the use of light.” In another article another student describes “Evans diligently noted his students' interests and projects in small looseleaf notebooks, but he gave no assignments, rarely talked about photography directly, and almost never discussed technique. Instead, as [then graduate student Alston] Purvis recalled, ‘he seemed to hover about the subject like a circling hawk.' He engaged his students in freewheeling conversations that touched on music, films, travel, printed ephemera and signs, mutual acquaintances, shyness, French literature, history, and golf…etc.” It seems as though Evan’s had a very different perspective on teaching then most did. It seems as though he really wanted to get to know his students, and try to connect with them on a personal level in order to help them further their photography skills. I think that as a teacher he would have been very helpful because he would make you actually think for yourself instead of just pouring out tons of information and then having them recite it back to him. He actually made his students make photography their own and unique to what they were interested in, which I believe is a very effective way of teaching a class of photography.
Article: Conned by the Master
Author: Richard Benson
Date: November/December 2008
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2008_11/arts_oblesson.html
Article: Walker Evans and Photography
Author: David Walsh
Date: March 3rd, 2000
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/evan-m03.shtml